Ms Geraldine Larkin:

My intention is to grow the number of owners and trainers. During 2015 the Irish Greyhound Board conducted an extensive consultation at grassroots level. We started with our own front-facing staff, the people referenced by the Deputy in her opening remarks, and we asked them how we could bolster the industry. We extended the discussion to the directors of all tracks and this culminated in the circulation of a document for public consultation. The document posed a number of options as to how we might grow ownership and invest in the industry. It discussed bolstering syndication, the leasing of greyhounds to new and upcoming syndicates and targeting prize money. It put out a number of options to industry stakeholders but the the money available to the Irish Greyhound Board was quite limited at the time, it being mid-2015. Nevertheless, we received a number of comments from stakeholders. The comments differed widely, as one might expect. Some felt we should support syndication while others felt that doing so should not be at the expense of the owner, who supports the industry on an ongoing basis, and that one group should not get preferential treatment over another. Others felt the current funding arrangements could be broadened and made more equitable. That is just a flavour of the comments we received.

The announcement in the budget of an additional €1.2 million is a significant game changer for us in terms of what we can do. In the past 12 months the Irish Greyhound Board ran over 16,000 races, which will give members an idea of the population involved in dog racing. Of that 16,000, half of the dogs were in the mid-grades - between A2 and A6 - and one of the considerations for us is whether to target one such group with additional funding or whether to provide an increase in funding across the board. Another alternative would be to replace earlier cuts to prize money. We are working through these three very different concepts and there are other possibilities, such as paying run money to placed dogs to directly subvent the costs associated with bringing a dog to racing. There are possibilities around racing clubs and around various breeding incentive schemes. There are myriad options and we have prepared initial costings on all of them. Our intention is for the entire board to consult, in the middle of December, with the various industry representatives who have engaged in the process in the past months, either by written submission personal representation. The objective will be to increase pools and attendance because if we can increase ownership those owners will also attend stadia, which will have a knock-on effect on the Tote and our food and beverage offerings. We have €1.2 million and we need to spend it wisely to ensure that, with the industry input, we get the best return for our money.

I was conscious of keeping my opening statement brief but this is the thinking behind my remarks.